Tag: Events

 

Updated July 15, 2008

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) Gyorgy Kolonics, a canoeing gold medalist at the 1996 and 2000 Olympics, died Tuesday after collapsing in his canoe while training for the Beijing Games. He was 36.

He lost consciousness and paramedics were unable to resuscitate him, the Hungarian Olympic Committee said. The committee cited heart failure as the probable cause of death.

“Kolonics was a true legend of Hungarian sports, an athlete at the peak of his career who was in a class by himself,” committee president Pal Schmitt said in a statement.

Kolonics won 15 world championships between 1993-07, most teamed with Csaba Horvath. In May, Kolonics and Gyorgy Kozmann won a silver medal in the 500-meter doubles at the European Championships in Milan, Italy.

Kolonics won gold in the 500-meter canoe doubles at the Atlanta Games and the 500-meter singles at the Sydney Games. He also won bronze in Atlanta in the 1,000-meter doubles with Horvath and in the same event at the 2004 Athens Games with Kozmann.

Kolonics was training with Kozmann for next month’s games, which would have been his fifth Olympics.